Canines; Jeongchan

Deux

Chan only grunts in pain at first, trying to curl up into a little ball, but he's unable to due to the bandages.

I set the bowl aside.

"Hey, are you ok?"

And then, he starts to transform.

It's grotesque, the way Chan's beautiful jawline and soft lips become a snout. His hands become furry and padded. It creeps up his arms and legs, all the while I can hear bones snapping and realigning themselves.

I hear him whimper in pain.

Then, just as fast as it began, it's over.

His clothes and bandages have mutated with him, becoming one with the thick silver pelt.

Because Chan is a wolf.

Wolf Chan howls and rips up his pillows.

"Chan?", I make the mistake of asking.

He bares his long canines, and I stare at their pearly white beauty. Then, he pounces on me. The chair topples over, the soup lands on the floor. I'm frozen to the spot. The moment feels surreal, and all I do is marvel at the way the shadows pattern his beautiful fur.

The beauty doesn't last, mainly because the wolf slashes at me with its' claws, leaving deep cuts in my white shirt with the pride flag on it.

It doesn't stay white for long, and I watch as it starts staining red, in shock.

It's only when I see the rest of the rainbow slowly becoming indiscernible from the red that I realize I'm in pain.

Chan, I notice, has gotten a lot closer to me again. I look up into his eyes, and can't find a semblance of humanity in them.

As of now, he's a wolf, and I'm his prey.

I leap into action, scrambling away just as Chan pounces again. I wince when the enormous flatscreen tv topples to the ground, smashing the screen to bits on the carpeted floor.

But the wolf doesn't stop, already jumping over the feathered carnage that are the ruined feathers and the shattered tv.

He lands on me, knocking the wind out of me as I land on the floor with his claws digging into my already tattered Tshirt.

In a last futile attempt to at least protect my face, I bring my hands up in front of me and close my eyes tightly.

This is the end.

Apparently, even death doesn't respect me enough to give me one you can take seriously.

And I never gave on my grandmas soup recipe.

I wait for the killing blow, but it doesn't come.

Instead, I feel something warm and rough slurping over my middle finger, precisely the spot  where Chan's poison blood was.

I open my eyes to find Chan licking my whirl tattoo thing, like a big, fluffy dog.

He sits down on my stomach and the upper part of my thighs, effectively crushing me. I gently try to push him off, but he won't go away, instead nuzzling my tattered shirt until he can see all my wounds and then licking those.

I'd think it has something to do with the bloodlust, but the way he does it is so gentle, so tender, that I know that's not what's happening here.

He's tending my wounds, I realize, and bring up my hands carefully to pet his soft fur.

He shudders slightly under my touch, and in this motion, he feels so vurnerable, so human.

When I stroke the shorter, softer fur on the top of his head, he leans into it, meeting my eyes.

His are the same beautiful mocha brown that I first noticed. His appearance may have changed slightly, but parts of him are the same.

The licking seems to be working too, the wound closing up, when Chan stands up, pads in a circle around my chest rather like a dog searching for a sleeping place, and, before I have time to react,he falls asleep on top of me, lying horizontally across my chest.

I pet his soft, thick fur, and even though I'm being crushed and am on the floor, fatigue takes over, and I fall asleep.

[][][][][]

I wake at 5 am the next morning, when the weight on my chest lightens and the form on it changes shape with the same muscle popping, bone crunching sounds.

"Chan"

I shake the man, whose bandages have unrolled to reveal healthy skin.

He's still wearing pants, to my great relief.

He groans and opens his eyes.

And screams.

One look at the mess in his living room, and he calls Ms. Wang to be up in half an hour with cleaning supplies. Then he looks at me, shaking like a leaf.

"That really happened?"

"If you mean the part where you became a wolf, tried to maul me, ruined your tv, and licked me, then yes."

He glances at my chest, where my shirt, reduced to red stained rags, still hangs from my shoulders.

"I'm... uh... I'm sorry for ruining your shirt and hurting you... um... I'll- I'll go get you one of my hoodies, we have morning classes in"-he checks his watch-" three hours. You can go make yourself brekkie, if you want."

I open the cabinet where I saw the cereal yesterday and once again marvel at the amount of cereal the guy has. I fill a bowl with a bit of it.

Chan comes back with a comfy looking hoodie that has 'MCR' stamped on it.

He fills his cereal bowl and we eat in silence, though I notice him occassionally glancing at me.

Even though I'm a tiny bit taller than Chan, the hoodie is still big on my comparatively thin frame, which means I can hide in it, cuddling away the world.

It's soft, like I imagined it to be, and it smells of the same expensive perfume as his jackets do, intoxicatingly good. I bring a sweater paw up to my nose and sniff delicately, hoping Chan doesn't think I'm weird.

I'm tired, so I put down the spoon for a moment and pull the opening of my hoodie to the bridge of my nose, inhaling the Channess.

I lay down my head on the table, closing my eyes, but open them again before I can fall asleep.

I glance up. Chan has a gentle, affectionate smile on his face looking at me, and I smile back until I realize that he can't see my mouth, obviously.

We finish, and Chan puts his food in the dishwasher, with me watching over his shoulder. He turns, and his nose bumps mine.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I stood to close."

"I'm going to go shower", he says, looking anywhere but my face, which is crimson.

The door bell rings, and I step back further.

"Yeah, do that, I'll talk to Ms. Wang. She likes me."

Indeed, Ms. Wang smiles brightly when she sees me open the door.

"What can I do for you?", she asks, her eyes trailing to the mess and wincing.

I try to think up a plausible explanation for the chaos.

"There was a... A rabid animal. It was a raccoon. It got stuck in the air vent, the poor thing. I was just feeding Chan some soup when he heard weird noises coming from the vent, so he opened it, which now that I think about it, seems like the premise of a horror movie. Out came this malnourished and terrified creature. It did a number on my shirt, the pillows, and the tv. We managed to catch and release it, but, well, it still left a whole lot of destruction in the living room", I fib, scratching the back of my head awkwardly.

"Oh dear. I hope Mr. Bang doesn't press charges"

"Oh, I'm sure he won't", I say breezily, waving off the notion,"but would you be so kind as to assist the clean up?"